London, 13 Rabiul Akhir 1434/23 February 2013 (MINA) – Telling the daily suffering of passing through Israeli checkpoints in its separation wall, a Palestinian director is preparing for the academy awards ceremony next Sunday, celebrating the nomination of his work as the first Palestinian documentary film for the prestigious award. “I think it’s a political victory for Palestinian situation and the Palestinian issue,” Emad Burnat, a Palestinian villager and director of the film, told the BBC on Friday, February 22. “This is the story of my life and the Palestinian situation. So I think that many people are changed by the story and believe that the film is changing more people.” Burnat’s film, “Five Broken Cameras”, is up for best documentary at Sunday’s 85th Academy Awards, according to OnIslam.net reports monitored by Miraj News Agency (MINA), Saturday. It follows the life of Burnat as he chronicles a weekly protest against Israel’s construction of its separation barrier through Bilin in the occupied West Bank. Going in weekly protests, he was attacked by Israeli soldiers and armed Jewish settlers who smashed each and every camera. One of Burnat’s cameras took a hard rubber bullet wedged between the lens and the casing.

“This camera,” he said, “saved my life for sure.”

The film was made in partnership with the Israeli director Guy Davidi. Another film nominated for the Academy Award for best documentary deal with the vexed issue of Israel and the Palestinians from a different prospective. The other film, titled The Gatekeepers, includes interviews with every living former head of Israel’s internal security agency, the Shin Bet. Israel occupied Al-Quds (East Jerusalem) and the West Bank in 1967 war. The 900km-long Israeli separation barrier is a mix of electronic fences, concrete walls, trenches, and closed military roads. It snakes along the occupied West Bank, leaving larger swathes of it on the Israeli side. The barrier leaves many Palestinian families cut off and deprived of their livelihoods. Palestinians denounce the barrier as part of Israeli efforts to grab more of their land to undermine the viability of their promised state. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has issued a landmark ruling branding the wall as illegal and asking Israel to compensate affected Palestinians. The film nomination followed the official UN recognition of Palestine as a non-member observer state last November.(T/P09/E1).